Book Review: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, by Wrexham Counsellor Kim.

This is a book written for Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapists (MBCT) to use with course participants and also for individuals looking for a self-help mindfulness approach to managing depression.  As you might expect with a cognitive (or thoughts orientated) approach there are forms and worksheets within the book and also online which are freely available to print for your own use or in a course setting.  There is also an enclosed audio CD of Mindfulness meditations with run along-side the 8 week course proposed within this book, and audio files can also be downloaded.  Part 1 describes the impact on depression on individuals as well as more widely internationally, and looks at the historic development and use of antidepressants.  It then explores why people relapse and the development of MBCT.  Part 2 explores MBCT theories of the “doing” and “being” states of mind and- perhaps of more use to practitioners running courses-the structure and overall content of the 8-week course and practicalities of setting-up and running an 8-week course.  Each session/week of the 8-week course is then described in great detail written for a practitioner to deliver to course participants.  Part 3 includes some of the research behind MBCT: does it work and how does it work?   This book feels to me to be aimed at MBCT instructors looking to expand their repertoire into the area of depression.  It is very detailed and highly researched, as one would expect coming from some of the “big names” in Mindfulness (Segal, Williams and Teasdale).  It doesn’t contain anything new from what you might come across in the other mindfulness-based approaches to depression books I have reviewed here, however it is aimed at a different audience, which makes this a stand-out book for MBCT instructors or other Mindfulness teachers.